Itunes, Billboard, and the marginalization of black music and black audiences in America

not at all, it's all over the airwaves, #2 on urban radio and #10 on pop radio

maybe Philly radio hates Pharell

I spoke too soon, they're playing it now

I haven't heard it a lot of times on the radio, but I've heard it on a lot of different radio stations -- pop, urban and NPR-affiliated alike.

fwiw i haven't heard it a lot on philly radio either

I heard it on the radio a few days ago & immediately afterwards the DJ came on the air and called his station manager "a gypsy." it kinda deflated the happy moment

and now an "R&B is back!" piece. There's no narrative that can't be overstated.

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/radio/5915823/ross-on-radio-an-rb-comeback-almost?utm_source=twitter

"things really seem to be turning around with the breakout successes of Jason Derulo's 'Talk Dirty,' Pharrell Williams' 'Happy,' Kid Ink's 'Show Me' and Aloe Blacc's 'The Man.'"

oh dear let's just pretend that one doesn't exist

lol crut

I love (read: hate) that Aloe Blacc's song sounds exactly like "The Ballad of the Green Berets."

I feel like the success of the DeRulo song has more to do with R&B stations' programming decisions being marginalized by the charts than anything else.

At least Aloe Blacc is getting billed on this song. Progress?

I haven't heard "Happy" on the radio, either, but my car died a few weeks ago, so I haven't heard anything on the radio, tbh.

http://m.xxlmag.com/entry/view/id/82505

wd Pat Boone

Just took a look at the full list now and find it amusing how both "Lollipop" and "In da Club" were ranked lower than something as obscure as Strik 9ine's "Dansin' wit Wolvez" (???). What's even more amusing is that somehow that record actually managed to stay at number one on the rap charts for 6 weeks in 2001.

where my tribe at?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Potd5vdhC6o

lol what IS this

reached #1 the week of 9/11

We forgot

neither wikipedia nor allmusic have ANYTHING on this guy

and he took the top spot in november - petey pablo was #1 on 9/11

(assuming the sep 15 billboard street date of his taking #1 came before the actual date of 9/11, otherwise #1 Coo Coo Cal's "My Projects")

http://c3.cduniverse.ws/resized/250x500/music/834/6558834.jpg

lmao. I remember hearing that song tho!!

the only other acts to hit #1 on the rap singles chart and not have their own wikipedia page are 1991's Jibri Wise One (who still has an allmusic bio, in full: "A new rapper with a street sense as well as a knack for songs with a pop touch.") and 1993's Trends Of Culture (who have an allmusic page but no bio).

ok, considering that Philly's Most Wanted's "Cross The Border" is the 22nd biggest rap song of all time on this countdown (between "get low" and "drop it like its hot") despite only peaking at #3 in Dec 2000, I have to wonder if it was easier to linger in the charts around this time or something, as their methodology was count the number of weeks a song was on the chart, weighing different eras and different positions.

actually, i'm wondering if there is a bit of an indie bias on this countdown (maybe some indie songs lingered on the chart considerably longer than songs with major-set promotional periods?), as the only songs that didn't hit #1 but appear in the Top 80 of the countdown are "Cross The Border," "I Like Dem Girlz," "Walk It Out," "Da Dip," "Dunkie Butt (Please Please Please)" and "C'Mon And Ride It (The Train)," all from labels that were probably calling stations to keep playing well after major reps would have moved on.

this possibility is also backed by "Tootsee Roll" allegedly being the 2nd biggest rap song of all time

"cross the border" being so high was o________o

macklemore is also indie(-ish) but obv benefits more from the chart covered switching focus from radioplay to itunes

i hope the billboard folks realized the quirk, but decided they were fine with giving a boost to every "Butt! (Get It Get It)" by The FreakTastikk 4 on BumpIt Records.

the biggest statistical variable of Hot Rap Tracks imo has always been that it's basically the R&B chart minus the R&B songs, and sometimes the #1 rap track was the #1 song on R&B radio, sometimes the top ten songs were all R&B and the #1 rap track wasn't actually all that popular.

lol i love the description on the strik 9ine youtube vid

I've never heard or heard of this Strik 9ine song!

I wonder if they had done this chart pre-Mack would they really have given "tootsee roll" Top Rap Song Ever status or changed the methodology to be less about weeks on chart.

http://www.soultracks.com/cr-whitewash

good piece, and yeah billboard methodology has issues and o no the internet etc but 90% of this problem (at a minimum) is due to radio, more specifically homogenization of pop radio and shift toward edm and post-edm. there's also an extent to which the trend is shaping (warping) r&b radio.

yeah, great piece

so with "all of me" looking like a legitimate contender for #1 in the coming weeks (to follow "happy" which is still going strong, tho declining), it would seem that the safest way to score a crossover smash these days if you are a black (male) artist is to release something that adult contemporary radio could get on board with

the middle of the road in 2014 is the worst middle of the road

I don't think it's that simple, dyl, both those songs are kind of unique cases. I do think it's notable, though, that black artists only have to skew mild and adult contempo if they're not already pop radio mainstays, Jason Derulo can be as clubby and risque as he wants.

the safest way to score a crossover smash these days if you are a black (male) artist is to release something that adult contemporary radio could get on board with - same as it ever was

there's a reason the first singles from thriller and bad were what they were

I was rather astonished by two things I noticed in Rihanna's discography:
1.) Rihanna has had a release every year since 2005 (in 2008, she released Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded, which itself had new singles)
2.) Rihanna's relevancy has -increased- since her debut.

She has evolved from a one hit-wonder to a rising star to proving she could maintain her shine to now kicking back as she joins the ranks of Madonna and Michael Jackson as a pop legend. For when you listen to Rihanna (and great pop music), you are listening to her persona. This is the appeal. The songwriting takes a backdrop to the personality, just as it did for Madonna and Michael Jackson. Just as these legends reflected the times, Rihanna does for ours.

Who is Rihanna?

What is considered the zeigeist of the current digital age?

Multicultural, multiracial, multilingual, un-aware vagueness.

Her lyrics seemingly draw material from several lifetimes (think to how many different songwriters have had their stories told through Rihanna's persona); these lyrics reflect upon multiple relationships which are evaluated in a sublime light. We don't know her, just like we don't really know Robert De Niro or Marilyn Monroe. Like an actress, Rihanna evokes powerful emotions requiring substance beyond typical human-capacity. How does she respond to this demand for infinite substance?

She stays silent. Sure, the minute she talks, the appeal is gone; but if she finds a way to leave the public wanting more (through mystery), she becomes the center of the conversation. It's simple logic -- you create the illusion that there's something -more- and it results in hype about what that something is. Rihanna is the latest to come along with her spin on this; except, as a direct product of a music system which has been at practice for over half a century, she is heavily-coached by people who have "Hype 101" mapped out in precise formula.

Rihanna is the end of pop music from the major label industry. At this point, all known major sounds have been recycled time-after-time; Rihanna is the dying roar of a Tyrannosaurus Rex -- powerful, but powerless against an asteroid. The industry's long-adapted to the pitfalls which came from presenting a flawed human upon a pedestal, claiming them to be flawless, and Rihanna is their magnum opus. In this metaphor, the internet is the asteroid and the prehistoric recording industry stands no chance -- regardless how many teeth.

Anyone who doesn't believe this need simply look at how many #1 singles Rihanna has had in such a short-period of time. It might be said that the industry has just been one gigantic attempt to artificially recreate Beatlemania, but without all that lyrical "rebellion" and musical "abstraction". Keeping the hype and removing any trace of challenge, Rihanna's music captures a sublime in-between space that has millions fascinated.

So in the age when everyone has their OWN pedestal, it is almost impossible to not be somewhat vein. Furthermore, when you look around and see that everyone else ALSO has their own pedestal, this vanity becomes even easier to believe in. So if everyone's already high off their own self-made hype, how does a industry of veteran hype-makers respond?

They give it their all, building a pedestal so high we're too busy admiring its scale to notice Robyn Rihanna Fenty didn't actually build this thing -- "Rihanna" did. It is coming from an unnaturally perfect plane of perspective, high in the clouds. She's standing miles above us and from way down here, none of us can make out who it is EXACTLY at the top of that pedestal, but plastered on the front is a massive projection of her fabled image.

This is what it is like listening to Rihanna. You can critique it by calling out the manufactured origin of the project, but if you suspend your disbelief and look at the project in another manner -- her success is a collective effort. Yes, her branding is calculated more meticulously than tomorrow's stock market and yes, this creates a "robotic"-like atmosphere, but her success requires the suspension of disbelief. This wondrous pedestal of stone which Rihanna sings upon is not really stone at all -- instead a bizarre, transparent hologram. When we forget this fact and let ourselves go, what's left isn't a hologram at all, but something very tangible and personal. -Personal- because we are humans and this is a perfect human image magnified to the level of a God from myth -- it reminds us of our inner-beauty, our inner-perfections and our higher potential.

Shine bright like a diamond!

xp that's very interesting some dude, i had never considered that re: derulo. but yes i think you are right that i am probably trying to make things simpler than they are

lmaooo i c/p'd part of that to see where it came from and OF COURSE it's rateyourmusic

It isn't Lefsetz?

i've been waiting for an opportunity to defend diamonds for a long time and i finally had my chance

let's 51 this motherfucker, people

stfu sleeve